I'm helping a friend of mine setting up his new ring and pinion in a chevy 10 bolt rear end, 8.5" corporate series 3 housing from a 72 nova.

The gear set is a 3:42 summit brand and he's using a rear end rebuild kit as well.

The problem is that we can't get the pinion depth deep enough. We have tried measuring the depth with a depth micrometer and ground bar laid across the bearing cap flat in the bearing saddles, (we measured the bearing bores in the housing, and we are compensating for the split in the bearing cap not being the center of the ring gear.)

..and there are no shims installed. Before we put the bearing on the pinion gear, we compared the big bearing land on the old pinion and new one with a height gage and granite surface plate and found about the same difference ..

Is this common? I'm rasonably confident in our measurements, should we just put it together and start running patterns or what?

just did a dif this spring. make sure you have set up bearings. use your old bearings and dremmel tool or similar to slightly remove metal on inside of race a little at a time untill they slide on with a bit of force- no pounding or press, then do your pattern. with the set up bearings you can adjust pinion depth. this way takes longer but it works. this is the last resort process if the depth measurements don't work. also the bearing on pinion(larger one) may not be seated all the way, i had to enlarge shim openings because of radius where the pinion shaft and gear face make a 90* angle. hope this helps

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